OSHA Investigating Death of Man at Cinderblock Firm
Investigators from the state Division of Occupational Safety and Health are looking into the death of a man who apparently fell into a huge vat of sand at a cinderblock manufacturing company in Orange, police said Tuesday.
Jose Ramirez, 37, died Monday after being buried under about 45 feet of the material at Angelus Block Co. in the 1700 block of North Main Street.
“From what I understand, there’s a walkway around the vat that wouldn’t expose you to falling in, and then there’s a beam across the top,” said Lt. John Whiteley of the Orange Police Department.
“The only way you could end up in the vat is to circumvent the beam.”
A woman answering the telephone at the company’s Sun Valley headquarters declined to comment or give her name.
Cal/OSHA officials could not be reached for comment, but the agency routinely investigates workplace accidents.
“He just sank right down,” Whiteley said of Ramirez’s death.
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